Sexual objectification of men

[DSM]

Maybe not feminism, but not sure where else to post..

Am I alone in being uncomfortable with the sexual objectification of men? Was just watching this morning where holly willoughby was interviewing some young chaps from the new twilight film.

Commments such as 'within the first minute you had your top off and I though 'oh yes, there it is'' and 'we've all been waiting a long time to see your sex scene'. There were many references to their bodies, their beauty and the fact they get naked, all met with 'phwoarr' type comments.

I felt like the men were being objectified, and if it had been a man making those comments to a woman on daytime tv, all hell would break loose.

Why is it accepted from female-male? Surely in the interest of equality this kind of behaviour shouldn't be acceptable to/from either sex?

Am I over reacting?

I was thinking about this yesterday. Years ago I went to see a male stripper. It was a charity event organised by the landlady of our local and I went along without a great deal of enthusiasm but feeling I was being a bit daring . It was embarrassing and boring - not titillating at all from my POV. However the rest of the women in the room seemed to like it - screaming and laughing hysterically. And guess who was the first member of the audience he picked on for his 'attentions'. Me, of course. The one woman who wasn't baying like a hound at the kill . He came over and out his cloak around me so that my head was next to his crotch - he was wearing a transparent pouch thing so he wasn't technically naked, and he was very careful not to touch me . It was totally humiliating and I am sure he chose me first because I wasn't playing the game. He was in control of those women - whatever they liked to think.

I agree with Sakura. Men clearly find it threatening when women are attracted to a man based on his physical attractiveness and personality rather than his power.

Why else do men verbally or physically attack minor celebrities like boy band members, singers and pretty male actors, and then call them gay while doing so? How does women finding a man physically attractive for reasons other than power make that man gay? Presumably because his attractiveness is a threat to notions of masculinity.

omg, EleanorRathborne. What a compliment! And thanks for the link to that article!!

MillyR, if women trusted their evolutionary instincts, and only reproduced with fit men, (men they found attractive), it would spell patriarchal doom. How many women would choose to procreate with their husband, if they could sleep with the handsomest man on the street instead?
Most women wouldn't mind sharing a man if they didn't require men for economic security. Patriarchy has it set up so that women need to cooperate with men for economic survival. IN most cases they need to live with a man.
In fact, in most economically deprived areas, where nobody owns private property (i.e council estates), this is exactly what happens. Women sleep with the local stud, the relationship doesn't last long, then he moves on. She then raise the child as a single mother, enlisting her mother to help. Usually the women/girls live with their mother. This is what happened where I used to live growing up anyway.

Ormirion, I'm certain he did choose you because you weren't interested in him. The other thing that turns men on apart from vulnerability, is the idea of imposing themselves on a woman who isn't interested. Perhaps making a woman feel uncomfortable made him feel powerful and dominant. Sex means something very different than it does for women and I'm still trying to get my head around the implications of this. For women it's about connection, for men it's about domination.

eta, sex means something very different to men than it does

Wow excellent posts by Sakura and MillyR.
In patriarchy where men have ownership and dominance over women, men can get laid and spread their genes even if they are unattractive woman hating bullies and psycho losers. It screws up human evolution doesn't it?! These types probably wouldn't be able to do any women if it wasn't for patriarchy no wonder they're against feminism!

OrmIrian - ugh, that sounded really unpleasant. And that's why I don't like male strippers - not only are they degrading themselves but they try to dominate the female audience while doing it!

That iO9 website looks interesting, thanks for linking.

I know I should probably ignore it but I do find gross generalisations like this ridiculous and annoying:

"For women it's about connection, for men it's about domination."

Probably as annoying as you would find it coming across a man holding forth on the fundamental truths of female sexuality.

The best, most satisfying sex I've had has been in long term relationships where we've established a deep emotional connection and understanding of each other. It is absolutely about reinforcing a connection and a bond between us. To dismiss that experience and tell me that it is all about domination is both pretty insulting and way off the mark. Still, no doubt you know me best, I'm probably just in denial or something!

Well that's great Nesbo but we're talking about general tendencies we notice here.
I hope this thread doesn't get derailed with dudes talking about their individual sexlifes.

I also think it's unhelpful to say "women like X, men like Y".

Some men might like X, and men may be more likely than women to like X (through genetics or through cultural conditioning), but you're not going to learn anything or come to any useful conclusions if you treat "men" as a homogeneous group.

Nesbo, unfortunately it is hard to talk about this subject without making generalizations (based on one's experiences) and I doubt that anyone would intend to pigeonhole you if you are on here engaging with the subject and giving it the thought that you obviously are.

Also, what you have to remember is that (IMO) most feminists don't ascribe such generalized differences to nature, but to the different cultural upbringings for men and women. Which means that men aren't genetically programmed to equate sex with domination but that they have been socialized to do so, given the media/porn industry's widespread association of male sexual pleasure with the domination and pain of women.

Sakura, I think you may have given me a light bulb moment. I remember being told by a boyfriend that it was a woman's "job" to look attractive and a man's "job" to be powerful. It really annoyed me at the time because he was a bit of a munter to say the least, and I found this really hypocritical! But your theory that patriarchy gives ugly men/geeks equal access to hot females - well I love it!!

I always felt very guilty that I wasn't physically attracted to him and even then I didn't have the guts to tell him that for fear of seeming really shallow.

So yes, I think that women are just as visual as men, it's just we've been told that we're above that kind of thing.

If we are going to talk about evolutionary fitness then we have to remember that it depends a lot on the environment. Features that may be "fit" for one environment may be deleterious in another.

Messy, I do understand that which is why I said I should probably ignore it!

I just think that whenever a guy comes on here and makes a generalisation framed as a universal truth he can expect to be swamped with replies from women along the lines of "well you're wrong because I'm not like that and neither are my friends" until he slinks off thoroughly chastened!

My reaction is much the same when I see something similar, but with fewer men those comments often go unchallenged, giving them greater legitimacy in the process. It is hard not to take it as a personal comment sometimes, and I just think it is worth reminding people that men do also have complex and varied feelings about this sort of stuff. Comments which seem to deny us those feelings can leave us (or me at least) feeling as if we are a bit weird and unusual.

Now I might be a bit weird in many ways but I don't think that the desire to forge an emotional connection is one of them. Anyway, apologies for the brief tangent.

I am guffawing at "by golly, there would be uproar if women were to appear half-clad whilst men were covered up".

Er, WHAT? Have you noticed "formal dress" recently? Have a look at this, four people smartly dressed. Which one is from the sex class? No prizes.

I know Elephant! We are always hearing stuff along the lines of "Oh imagine the outrage from the PC Brigade if this happened to women!" never noticing the irony is that it does happen to women all the time.

Er yes, and female athletes actually being forced to wear bikinis/short skirts in order to compete, as a UNIFORM. Do you notice Andy Murray being forced into a mankini? Me neither.

"I hope this thread doesn't get derailed with dudes talking about their individual sexlifes."

omgLOL

I hope so too sonicrainboon

I think generalizations are extremely helpfull, actually.

MUrderers are generally men

The people these men kill are generally women (two women a week in the UK)

Women generally never kill anyone, neither women nor men, and if they do it's self defence, usually after years of abuse.

So you see! You most certainly can generalize about men and women.
IN the above instances I have solid evidence to back up the generalizations, but there's no reason why our collective observations can't be applied to sex.

It's what's called "searching for patterns". The patriarchy would like us to believe everything is random, that every single male murderer is in fact a random abbheration, and that men generally aren't like that. Or that each woman's individual husband is an exeption who does not prop up the patriarchy and is even somewhat feminist.
He isn't.

If your going to make generalisations at least make correct ones yes murderers are generally men but they generally kill other men actually. Personally I find the if women only slept with the most handsomest man (assuming the man would want to have sex with them) patriarchy would be doomed theme kind of odd. If anything it probably make it worse. The sterotypical 'player' is generallly very goodlooking they also tend to be arseholes, so not sure how the blame can be laid on 'geeks' even though most men are in neither category but somewhere in the middle.

Are men's 'breasts' ever going to be viewed int he same way as women's breasts? I mean I's fairly acceptable for a man to walk down the street with his top off without 1. feeling vunerable or 2. being hollered at.

A woman walking down the street doing the same would most likely be in some kind of danger.

This I think is the difference between the 'objectification' of men and women.

Looking at the history of gendered roles for men and women, it seems to me that there isn't a 1:1 relationship between sexually objectifying men and sexually objectifying women. Men can be objectified, just as women can, but it's generally not for their appearance.

The objectification of a man that's more truly equivalent to leering at a woman's tits and arse is the kind that leers at him as rich, powerful and a wallet on legs. This happens a lot, is far more invisible than any televised leering at young male Twilight stars, and puts horrendous pressure on any man who is not at the 'top of the pile' in terms of money and power. Much as media images of 'perfect' women leaves the majority of normal-looking women feeling inadequate.

Whether we like it or not, gendered archetypes still exist that position women as primarily valued by their looks; these archetypes also position men as primarily valued by their money and power. Being a poor or powerless man is thus the equivalent of being an ugly woman, and this very different kind of objectification of men can easily be missed if we see men as a monolithic mass engaged, in solidarity with one another, in holding up the patriarchy.

COldTruth
No you've missed the point. I'm saying the geeks are the ones who have the most invested in patriarchy as a political system. Without the political system of patriarchy propping them up, they would never have the reproductive opportunities they currently enjoy, hence they have the most to lose by feminism. And who knows, the nice guy act that geeks are forced to use in order to attract women might just be another sales technique ( handsome men don't need to bother with niceties)

You're probably right about men killing other men: men are dangerous to everyone, including themselves.

yawn... Misogygeeks MRA populating the thread with their stock responses...

OTheHUge,
Men created this system, not women.
Gendered archetypes don't fall from the sky. They are the result of an intensive process of social conditioning which encourages women to seek a man (fairy tales! princess cartoons!), whereas otherwize they might just live set up home with best mate, or their sister, or even their mother ( as in the example I gave above).

Then there's the political system, which ensures that almost all wealth and property remains firmly in the hands of men. THis is done deliberately so that women remain powerless and men can use them as the sex class (prostitution), the cheap labour class (pink collar ghetto), or so they can offer financial security in exchange for reproductive services.

But drunk on this power of theirs, at some point men decided it was no longer enough for them to be able to control women; they demanded that women primp and preen themselves as well i.e do femininity.
Women who refuse to do femininity are harshly punished. Just ask any butch dyke if you don't believe me. So women's behaviour and appearance is policed. The more a woman conforms to what men want, the less grief she will get.

They've gone mad on power, these men. They're now butchering women into acceptable shapes. It's eugenics on a mass scale. Inserting plastic into women's chests and sucking out healthy tissue from other areas. If you're in any doubt about how low women's status is, just look at the cosmetic surgery and see what is happening to women on a mass scale!

Being a poor or powerless man is not the same as being an "ugly" woman (not that I think any women are ugly) because that man still benefits from male privilege, which places him above all women. A poor man can still fuck a prostitute, and very often does. A poor man can still buy another human being's body i.e a woman's. That's where he is compared to women in this system. And because women are visual creatures, just like men, then that man is likely to get as plenty of opportunities, if he is good looking.

So what we're actually looking at, post-feminism is a situation where women have real power, and would not need to barter or beg, or sell any part of themselves, or their services to men. In this type of society, quite a few men will not getting the opportunity to reproduce. This is only fair, seeing as it's women who risk their lives to bring the child into the world, in excrutiating pain, not men. So this is what's at stake for men. That's why they hate feminism so much.